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I was on a Vermont Historical website today. Looked for census records in one particular town from 1890. It was noted that half of the records had been burned when the basement of the town hall caught fire and the records were destroyed.
So, 13 years later the council members took a vote and decided to burn the other half of the records ! What the heck. May as well make it all unusable. LOL
OMG do I "get you" on this one!
My mother is 1st generation American born Greek. Seems that ALL the vital statistic record were kept in "The Church" & all the churches were "burnt down" during civil unrest at one point or another.
Not only that but in Greek culure your birthday was not considered very important; instead you had your "Name Day" which depended on which Saint you were named after.
It was common for a Greek person to "make up" an age & birthday for immigration purposes ... nobody ever REALLY knew how old my YiaYia & Papou were when they died.
So basically the entire side of my mothers family runs right into a huge void & dead end.
One of my frustrations is that while many Italian civil records are available online/microfilm, they only go back to a certain point, and beyond that you need to use parish records, and the Catholic church hoards them and generally won't let anyone microfilm or digitize them. You have to write a letter, in Italian, which I am not fluent in, to request a copy of any parish records.
I understand that it's probably a good thing that most genealogy books in libraries are non-circulating. That helps create a reliable and stable foundation of sources for investigators who hit the road and make the rounds.
But.... It's truly frustrating not to have access to these books when I don't have the time and money to make genealogy research trips. It seems that some places (via Interlibrary Loan or direct contact) will help look info up and maybe scan/send some pages, but others won't. I have a mysterious relative who just may (or may not!) be profiled/mentioned in one or more of the titles I've become aware of, but one of the books is in repositories that will not investigate and scan. The other title (in other libraries) remains to be seen--my request is pending. I really can't plan any trips in the near (or far) future to seemingly random locales several states away, yet one of these books can provide the breakthrough that I need.... Or maybe not!!
(I sort of wonder if this ancestor in question faked what little info I know in order to rise up in the world. Grrrrr.)
PA2UK posted some good info on it here. Perhaps I was using the term too loosely, as I was referring to the Irish nationalist independence movements from the early 1900s, so I guess they were the proto-Troubles.
In 1922, during the conflict, the building that housed most Irish census records was set ablaze. Most of the records were destroyed, though fortunately, some were reconstructed or managed to escape destruction:
I understand that it's probably a good thing that most genealogy books in libraries are non-circulating. That helps create a reliable and stable foundation of sources for investigators who hit the road and make the rounds.
But.... It's truly frustrating not to have access to these books when I don't have the time and money to make genealogy research trips. It seems that some places (via Interlibrary Loan or direct contact) will help look info up and maybe scan/send some pages, but others won't. I have a mysterious relative who just may (or may not!) be profiled/mentioned in one or more of the titles I've become aware of, but one of the books is in repositories that will not investigate and scan. The other title (in other libraries) remains to be seen--my request is pending. I really can't plan any trips in the near (or far) future to seemingly random locales several states away, yet one of these books can provide the breakthrough that I need.... Or maybe not!!
(I sort of wonder if this ancestor in question faked what little info I know in order to rise up in the world. Grrrrr.)
There are several alternatives for your situation.
How old is the book? Is the author still alive? If so, contact him.
Use message boards. Ask if anyone has access to a copy.
If there is a historical society near the library that has the book, there may be a volunteer who will check and see if the book has what you are looking for.
If the library is in a college town, check the school's job board. Someone may be willing to go to the library to earn a few bucks.
Finally, you could consider paying a professional genealogist to do it, probably for a few bucks more than the college kid would want.
I actually used a student to look up something for me at one of the Columbia University libraries. The library pulled the records I was interested in and the student looked through them and found, copied, and emailed me what I wanted. I just posted the job on the university board.
There are several alternatives for your situation.
How old is the book? Is the author still alive? If so, contact him.
Use message boards. Ask if anyone has access to a copy.
If there is a historical society near the library that has the book, there may be a volunteer who will check and see if the book has what you are looking for.
If the library is in a college town, check the school's job board. Someone may be willing to go to the library to earn a few bucks.
Finally, you could consider paying a professional genealogist to do it, probably for a few bucks more than the college kid would want.
I actually used a student to look up something for me at one of the Columbia University libraries. The library pulled the records I was interested in and the student looked through them and found, copied, and emailed me what I wanted. I just posted the job on the university board.
Great ideas! I'm generally averse to "bothering" people to do stuff for me, but you're right that there could be a volunteer or student on the other end who can arrange something. Maybe I can solve the mystery of Mathew J Wheeler after all....
Wharton Ransdell. Even with today's surname-as-first-name fad for kids, I don't think anyone would touch Wharton with a ten foot pole.
The first was Wharton Ransdell, born ca 1685, of Westmoreland Co VA; the last in my line was Wharton M. Ransdell, a Baptist preacher who died in 1842. None of his three sons carried the name, and none of his three sons perpetuated it; I think he hated it. The name died a natural death in collateral lines around 1850.
Great ideas! I'm generally averse to "bothering" people to do stuff for me, but you're right that there could be a volunteer or student on the other end who can arrange something. Maybe I can solve the mystery of Mathew J Wheeler after all....
I think you will find that most people who are interested in genealogy are never "bothered" about requests for assistance. All of us who have researched our trees have benefited from the generosity of others who share their data, photos, and expertise. Some of them are here on CD!
Since a lot of the fun of genealogy is in the hunt, for many of us bagging an elusive ancestor is rewarding even if it is not one of our own.
I have shared my "what's in a name" story here before, so pardon me if you've already heard it.
I had several records for a second great grandmother, including a marriage license, which had been transcribed everywhere with her maiden name as Glass, and a county cemetery survey book which had her maiden name as Glazier. Even with her birth and death dates I just could not find her in the census prior to her marriage under either of those surnames.
Her maiden name in the marriage record was interpreted as Glass, with the first s written in that funny backward f style called a leading s.
After adding her husband's siblings to the tree, I discovered that one of his brothers had married a woman whose maiden name was Glaze. That triggered the "aha" moment! Brothers marrying sisters was common in that family.
The "leading s" was actually a z, and it even looks like a z in the original.
Searches at ancestry.com had pulled up a female her age with the last name Glaze that I had discounted because the first name did not match. It was close, though: Lavina was in the census as Favina.
Lavina apparently did not like that name. She preferred Nettie, short for Antoinett. Her will actually has her as "L. A." Lavina Antoinett.
Once I knew that Favina was actually Lavina, and she was a Glaze, everything fell into place. There are actually extensive records on her parents' families.
What cinched it was a visit to her grave. I knew about where it was on the old home place from an old county map and the cemetery book. I got a lead from an internet message board about an elderly lady who might know where the grave was. An inquiry at the county courthouse (small town - everybody knows everybody!) let me know that lady would probably not remember. However, her sons were lawyers with an office only a block from the courthouse. I walked over, went in, and explained what I was looking for. They even had the old map on the wall in their reception area. I pointed out where I thought she was buried. Neither of the lawyers knew anything, but one said, "If anyone knows, it's Mr. W. He played in the woods all over that area when he was growing up." Armed with Mr. W.'s phone number, I dialed him up, and explained again what I was trying to find. He just laughed and said, "She's in my back yard!" That was followed by an invite to come on by his home. Yep, two overgrown graves, Nettie and one of her sons, enclosed by a short wrought iron fence. Mr. W. lent me some limb loppers and I tackled the briars until I could get to Nettie's slab, which is under a cedar tree. After I removed the cedar needles and little rootlets growing over the slab, I could read the inscription.
Antoinett L. Glaze
Wife of ...
Her dates of birth and death
"She was too good and too gentle to dwell in this cold world."
So in the end she flipped her first and middle names.
Lessons I learned:
*Do not discount any name in a search, no matter how weird it looks.
*People do not always go by the same name their entire lives.
*Wherever possible look at the original source. Do not assume a transcription is correct.
*Take limb loppers when visiting unfamiliar cemeteries. Bug repellent is a good idea, too.
*You meet some nice people when you do genealogy research.
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